Most of us join a religion as part of growing
up, often taking on the faith our parents professed. We don't have much
choice. We were "brought up" in their religion.
In the late 1960s, I began to teach religion in
a diocesan high school. My students often reminded me they had no choice in
their religious training. So, they contended, I shouldn't expect them to
accept "the stuff" I was trying to "cram down their throats."
Part of their teenage rebellion revolved around
rejecting their parents' faith.
Commitment
The authors of the Scriptures wrote nothing for
16-year-olds. Their goal was to demonstrate the implications of faith for
people who had freely committed to their faith.
In some important sense, we don't give
ourselves over to faith; faith "overtakes" us. In the title song of her
recent album, "The Calling," Mary Chapin Carpen-ter reflects on this
phenomenon in her own life: "Deep in your blood or a voice in your head,
on a dark lonesome highway, it finds you instead. So certain it knows you,
you can't turn away, something or someone has found you today....There's
no other way, there's no other way."
Of course, no matter how deeply we're
convinced there's no other way, we're constantly tempted to find one.
Though Jeremiah freely committed himself to be Yahweh's prophet, he
continually must deal with "outsiders" who attempt to stop him from
being the conscience of his people.
In Sunday's first reading (Jer 38:4-6,8-10),
"the princes" try to have Jeremiah killed because he proclaims peace
during a time of war. They complain to the king, "He is demoralizing the
soldiers who are left in the city, and all the people, by speaking these
things to them; he is not interested in the welfare of our people, but in
their ruin."
The author of the second reading (Hebrews
12:1-4) offers a suggestion to those in his community who might be tempted
to chuck their faith's calling because of "opposition from sinners."
They're to focus on that "great cloud of
witnesses" who have gone before them in faith, especially Jesus. (It might
be good to remember that the Greek word for witness is "martyr.") Says
the author: "Consider how Jesus endured such opposition from sinners, in
order that you may not grow weary and lose heart."
Even if we had no outside opposition, we'd
still have to face the internal tensions Jeremiah refers to in his famous
(and depressing) chapter 20 "confession." Some of the same tensions are
brought up in the Gospel (Luke 12:49-53).
Source of division
There's an "anguish" which comes from
simply carrying out the call we accept, especially when we experience the
effect it has on others. "Do you think I have come to establish peace on
the earth?" Jesus asks. "No, I tell you, but rather division."
We might be as convinced as Jeremiah that our
calling was an essential part of us even before God "formed us in the
womb," yet we still might not like the place it assigns us in our everyday
lives.
If we're normal human beings, we don't look
forward to being a bone of contention for the "good folks" we daily
encounter. Left to our own desires, we'd much rather live a more peaceful
existence. We'd prefer someone else be the person "to set the earth on
fire." More than anything else, the opposition of our loved ones often
stops us from fulfilling our faith commitments.
Perhaps that's why Mary Chapin Carpenter ends
her song with a question: "Who would believe me? I can't really say.
Whatever the calling, the stumbling and falling, I followed it knowing
there's no other way."
I've discovered, through the years, that most
high schoolers, even in Catholic schools, have yet to reach that dimension
in their faith.
(8/23/07)